Chow Lee. Image via publicist.
Two years ago, Chow Lee and Cash Cobain changed the trajectory of New York hip-hop. The pair’s collaborative mixtape 2 SLIZZY 2 SEXY crept across digital airwaves that summer, offering a shamelessly raunchy spin on the sample drill beats favored by New Yorkers like Shawny Binladen and Kay Flock.
“At first they wasn’t jacking us,” Chow Lee tells me over a video call late in July. “Now everybody wants to sexy drill.”
And he does mean everybody — Bktherula, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, NAV, Jay Critch, and Drake are just a few of those who have tapped Cash Cobain for features. That’s before we get into the myriad artists tesselating the sound in their own style, from R2R Moe and Kelz to Vontee the Singer and Baby Osama. The duo’s randy banter spearheaded an alternate vision of their hometown’s sound du jour, unburdened by stick talk and its attendant surveillance.
Unfazed by the saturation, the pioneers have only leveled up in the two years since. As Cash has pushed his production further into moody, atmospheric terrain, welding drill patterns to wonky melodies and muted drums, Chow has grown as a rapper, developing his tones and rhythms. His new album Sex Drive is a fully-engaged and fully-engorged listen; though his libido rarely dips, Lee impishly broadens his horizons, counterbalancing slizzy sexts with romantic overtures and naked dancefloor plays.
Take February single “ms. beautiful V,” which opens, “28 seconds ago I was doin’ that thing that you like / I just cut my bitches off,” as if Chow’s preferred post-coital cigarette is a late-night recording session and posting “LEAVE ME ALONE I GOT A GIRL” on IG Create Mode. Or last summer’s “jatty,” where Lee breezily issued choreography instructions over a delicious fragment of Toni Braxton: “Two steps to the right step back / Two steps to the left step back / Turn around shake your ass then clap.” These songs aren’t chaste by any stretch, but they feel more risqué than obscene, splitting the difference between Cash Cobain’s bricked-up hymns and the starry-eyed ballads of sexy drill’s rookie of the year Wolfacejoeyy.
Sex Drive largely follows suit, although Chow still prefers rapping about “derogatory shit” (his words, not mine). He self-deprecates early on the album, saying “I’m not really lyrical / I’m just talkin’ my shit on the beat and it works.” But even his sleaziest ideas here — group sex with best friends, unabashed infidelity, getting busy in a church — are rendered with winking self-awareness and a silly eye for detail. He’s owning his failings as a partner on “GMT” (“I like bad bitches that’s hoes, that’s how I lost my bitch”) and dispensing long-distance relationship advice on “advance w her!” (“Me and my bitch on tour at the same time, took my dick and then I mold it”).
It’s not just his pen that’s sharpened: Sex Drive finds Chow firmly in the pocket, teasing out stop-start meters across a startling breadth of instrumentals. “People don't even know what lane I could get in yet,” Chow tells me. “They just know me from sexy drill. That's why I tried to switch it up, [though] not too much.”
Whether the PoWRTrav soul chop on “settings!” or the woozy muffle of “Swag it,” Lee’s restless flow never slips out of sync, yielding some of his best songs to date. Delirious birdcall synths puncture the haze of “GMT;” when a pulsing 808 drops in, Chow deftly weaves between its kicks, grinning, “You got some shit on you bae, you could sell it / I ain’t really telling’ you to sell it but if you gon sell it make sure they Zelle ya.”
Late album verses by Flo Milli and Anycia are silky highlights for everyone involved: the feminine perspective keeps Sex Drive feeling messy rather than misogynist, and the vindictive repartee of “get back!” is effortlessly slinky. Elsewhere, “bangbang!” features what I can only describe as a MIKE-type beat, propelled by evocative chords and riddled with unwieldy drums. And when Cash Cobain and Bay Swag swing through “act bad twin!,” the trio sound downright religious rapping about paramours over a bleary PARTYNEXTDOOR sample.
Reflecting on last summer’s HOURS AFTER THE CLUB, Chow says, “We could have did better on the rollout. A lot of gems on there got overlooked, and ‘jatty’ was one of them.” What might frustrate another artist seems to have only motivated Chow, and his meticulous approach to his latest record is apparent on wax as well as in conversation.
The FADER caught up with Chow Lee at the end of July to chat about sample beats, sexy drill, and his new album Sex Drive.
The FADER: How would you compare Sex Drive with your last album HOURS AFTER THE CLUB?
Chow Lee: We still talking about women, we catering to the girls and, you know, still talking about sleazy shit, derogatory shit. But the difference is, HOURS AFTER THE CLUB the character I was in was just super nightlife vibe, outside shit. Sex Drive, I’m on my fucking jock shit, y’know what I’m saying? Letterman high school teenage fever.
Chow Lee does a coming-of-age movie.
I’m on my “party at the lakehouse” type vibe, instead of me talking about going to the strip club, you feel me?
What was the recording process like for this album?
It wasn’t like “I’m about to work on an album,” but as I started making these songs I’m like, “alright, I want to put together a project.”
It’s a song called “LSD” and another one called “48!” that go into each other. Those two specifically I made for [Sex Drive]. I made it all one song, but it was too long — people tend to spin the shorts, so I just cut them into two, type shit. And the outro [“SkeleTONs”], I handpicked that one. And “Settings” too for sure.
“Settings” and “Skeletons” both gave me Drake vibes, especially when you're doing those slowed-down synth outros. It’s very “Shut It Down” part two.
That's where I got it from, to be honest. I started to overdo it [trying] to make it mine and do it in my way. I like reversing the beat and shit — I just like fucking around with sounds. I don't know how to make beats, but we gonna learn some.
There are a lot of different synths and these almost ambient textures and sounds on this album, so I was really curious to hear about your process for choosing beats, because you've got access to some of the best producers in the game right now.
It’s really all them for real, but if I’m gonna sample some shit, like… I don’t like to just send somebody a song and be like, “yo just sample this, just do anything.” Usually it’s certain parts of the song where it’s like, “Yo, I want this part of the song and make it original so they can’t even tell the sample.”
I do it like that because certain people just throw the fucking song in the background and put drums over it and call it a sample — I don’t really like doing that shit. You gotta make it authentic. Even though it's a sample, you still gotta try to make it yours.
What was going through your head during “settings!” where you're like, “this not a setting for rallies?” It’s so funny and memorable.
I don't know, bro! I was just rapping. I like to make scenarios up in my head, so I just kept going. When I do shit like that, it's a little gift of mine, I could just make some shit up real quick. So certain songs would be fiction and certain songs would be not fiction [because] I could do that shit. So I just had to keep the story going and make it witty at the same time because you know that’s what people love me for.
Sex Drive, I’m on my fucking jock shit, y’know what I’m saying? Letterman high school teenage fever.
Have you ever gotten in trouble in real life for something you said on a song?
Hell yeah. Like I just said, some shit be fiction and some shit be nonfiction, but it's like I'm saying this shit so detailed, they think it's real. Some of the shit don't be real, I just be exaggerating, but you know, it's art, do what you do. But they think I'm deadass serious when I'm saying this shit in the song. Even my girl, she'll be like, “Oh you saying this and that thing.” Whole time that shit not even true, but it is what it is though. Definitely got in trouble a few times for some lyrics. But you know it comes with it, it’s the beauty of it.
This album is about relationships. I was curious if you had any thoughts on what men should know about dating in 2024.
Shit, stay off Instagram [laughs]. That's what gets you in trouble every fucking time man. I ain't gonna lie, just stay off the Internet — and don't like pictures. Swear to god. You do that, shit you could win.
Do you have any advice for the ladies?
Pick your battles. Stop tripping about every little thing, it’s not even worth the energy sometimes, just chalk that shit up.
What are your thoughts on the evolution of sexy drill? Things have advanced a lot since you and Cash Cobain did 2 SLIZZY 2 SEXY.
It's a beautiful thing, man, because... We made the shit at first, we was getting write-ups and shit, and they wasn't jacking us. It was, what the fuck is sexy drill? [Now] everybody wants to sexy drill this, sexy drill that. But it comes with that shit. So it's a beautiful thing, you know what I'm saying?
It's fun. I love to see it, type shit. I'm glad that we worked hard, and our hard work is paying off, and everybody is fucking with what we created. I'm glad to be a creator. Everybody always looks at us like me, Lonnie Love, Cash, we the pioneers. So I'm glad to be a pioneer to shit. I'm glad that it worked out in our favor. And for me, I want everybody to keep making this shit. We're not gatekeeping this shit. Make it, shit's just going to be making shit bigger. So I encourage everybody to keep the sound going. Let’s keep this shit alive.
